Dodgers could use a little right-handed help tonight
As you try to figure out who is going to play tonight one constant keeps on showing up, the Dodgers are short a right-handed hitting outfielder.
Chase Utley has been sitting against LHP, so if you move Howie to 2nd base as has been the case, you have three outfield spots that need to be filled.
Hard to imagine that Josh Reddick would get one of those spots given he has historically been awful against left-hand pitching, and so far he’s been awful in August just facing right-hand pitching. Facing the best left-hander in the NL, not on the DL doesn’t seem like it is in the cards.
Next up is Joc Pederson, and while Joc has been hitting, he still struggles mightily against left-hand pitching.
You know Mr. Hernandez is going to play somewhere, probably CF or RF. But that still leaves two spots open. Rob Segedin could grab one of those spots or he could go on paternity leave. But let’s be optimistic and write Rob into the lineup in LF.
That still leaves a spot in RF. Do they let Toles play against the LH, he doesn’t have enough of a history to know if he can or cannot hit left-hand pitching.
Trayce Thompson and SVS picked a bad time to be hurt. Puig picked a bad time to be made an example of.
Everyone is giddy coming off the greatest game of the year but now things get real. They face the team they must beat to win the NL Western Divison. Too many games exist between now and end of the year against the Giants to win the division without beating the foe chasing you.
Can they do it with a patchwork rotation and one hand held behind their back as they try to accomplish this with the best right fielder in the organization playing in AAA.
Maybe
Jose De Leon keeps throwing his panama hat into the ring, and the Dodgers keep throwing it back at him
Jose was already on a hot streak but tonight he may have outdone everything he had already done to get noticed by the Dodger front office. Tonight Jose threw six no-hit innings and ended up with seven one-hit innings, no walks, and ten strikeouts.
That is about as good as you can do.
Over his last four games, Jose has now pitched 27 innings, struck out 32 while working only 2, and giving up seventeen hits. In his last two games, he has struck out 20 in 14 innings, walking zero, and giving up seven hits.
It is not like the Dodgers don’t need pitchers and it has been a bit befuddling to me that they continue to use what they have instead of turning to DeLeon. I mean the rotation ERA in August is over 6.00. They rarely pitch five innings. The worse that Deleon could do is already what they do on a daily basis.
The rotation is so shaky that right now the three pitchers scheduled to go against the Giants are:
Tuesday – Kenta Maeda – solid
Wednesday – Rich Hill is supposed to make his Dodger debut. He hasn’t pitched in any kind of a non – simulated game since July 7th. No minor league re hab games, just a simulated game. Good luck with that.
Thursday – ha ha – Brett Anderson is scheduled. So far Brett has made two starts. He has been bombed in the first inning in both starts giving up five and four runs respectively. Even worse he has left both games with two different injuries.
On tap would be Bud Norris who not only is battling a bad back but looks to be bad Bud Norris again. Following him could be Scott Kazmir who has admitted to a boatload of physical ailments. So both these options are hurt and pitching kind of crappy when they do take the mound.
Leftover, are rookies Ross Stripling and Julio Urias. It may be time to add a 3rd rookie to the list. At least until some of these injuries heal or they can start pitching better.
I understand the 40 man roster is tight, but come on, does anyone really think Casey Fien should be holding Jose De Leon from making important starts right now? Maybe the front office feels they can simply cobble a group of pitchers together until Clayton is ready or Sept comes around. Maybe they think the offense and bullpen can continue to shoulder the load of the worse rotation in baseball in August.
Doesn’t seem like a great plan to me.
Schebler & Peraza torment team that traded them to no avail
They both have hit a home run, and they both have hit a double so far this series. In total, they had 14 hits, while driving in six runs, and scoring six times. It did seem that Peraza was on base every time in the three games he played.
Yet the Dodgers still won the last two games of the series thanks to the great pitching by Urias and the offensive explosion today.
| Name | | | Atbats | | | Hits | | | RS/RBI | | | DBL-HR |
| Schebler | | | 15 | | | 5 | | | 1/3 | | | 1/1 |
| Peraza | | | 15 | | | 9 | | | 5/3 | | | 1/1 |
Last winter in the biggest trade the Dodgers made they sent Scott Schebler, Jose Peraza, and Brandon Dixon to the Reds but they didn’t get back any players from the Reds. Instead, the Reds sent Todd Frazier to the White Sox, and the White Sox sent the Dodgers Trayce Thompson and Frankie Montas.
It will take a few years to sort who got the most from this deal, but as it stands right now the Reds have a starting right fielder and a starting shortstop. For a while, neither of them had a place to play but when the Reds moved Jay Bruce, they immediately brought up Scott Schebler and inserted him into right field against both right-hand and left-hand pitching. Schebs quickly paid dividends by blasting a dramatic walk-off home run in his first game back.
Peraza had to cool his jets because Brandon Philips was proving hard to trade. Zack Cosart was playing well so instead of letting him be a utility player on the big club they let him get full-time at-bats in AAA. When the Reds traded Bruce to the Mets they acquired minor league 2nd baseman Dilson Herrera, which tells me they expect Peraza to be their shortstop of the future. Last week Peraza was promoted up to the Reds and has played shorstop the last three games against the Dodgers.
Trayce Thompson did good work for the Dodgers hitting in spurts, mostly against left-hand pitching. Frankie Montas kept breaking ribs and eventually Montas and his 100 MP fastball were sent to the A’s for Josh Reddick and Rich Hill.
Eventually Josh Reddick might hit, and eventually, Rich Hill is going to take the mound. Yet, for these four games Scott Schebler and Jose Peraza were the only two players in the winter deal doing anything at all.
“I just love hitting in this ballpark”
Adrian Gonzalez exclaimed after hitting his 3rd home run today, leading the Dodger explosion over the Reds.
It should not have surprised anyone:
- He had after all already hit five home runs off of Homer Bailer.
- Adrian destroys Great American Ballpark.
- Adrian has crushed this year in day baseball with a triple stat line of .390 | .445 |.561 and that was before he hit three home runs today. Can’t wait to see those numbers tomorrow morning.
- Plus I said he’d go on a home run streak five days ago.
In the end, the Dodgers hit seven home runs, falling one short of tying the record of eight set May 23rd, 2002. That was of course the Shawn Green game where Green hit four home runs. In that game Green only drove in seven runs, Adrian drove in eight today.
Lots of stuff happened today:
- Toles and Segedin become just the eight duo rookies to hit back to back first jack in MLB history.
- Seager / Adrian went back to back in the same innings as Toles and Segedin
- Three rookies hit a home run in the same inning.
- Adrian hit three home runs and drove in eight runs
- Adrian / Grandal went back to back becoming the first Dodgers to have three separate back to back jacks in the same game.
- Seager had a boatload of hits
The one thing I noticed was that when I rewatched I noticed that when Seager / Adrian went back to back that they put in a new pitcher between Seager’s jack and Adrian’s jack.
Later in the game after Seager got a hit, they put in a new pitcher just before Adrian went boom again. Heck of a way to greet a new pitcher each time.
What a game
TOOMGIS!!!!
The LAD just had the greatest morning inning ever. Ever
If not ever, someone can point me to a better one.
Dodgers Fifth Inning:
- Toles hits his first major league home run
- Segedin hits his first major league home run
- That makes two rookies hitting back to back home jacks
- Corey Seager hits his twenty-second home run. Hard to believe anymore, but Corey Seager is also a rookie. That makes three home runs in the same inning by rookies. I feel comfortable in saying the LAD have never done that, but I’d love to be proven wrong. I know Eric Stephen is looking it up right now.
- Adrian Gonzalez hits his second home run of the game.
- That makes two combinations of back to back jacks. Toles and Segedin and Seager and Adrian
Come on, that shit is cray.
Julio Urias continues to amaze
I don’t have the superlatives to describe what 20-year-0ld, Julio Urias did yesterday against the Reds but however you want to describe what he did, it was exactly what the Dodgers needed, and the last thing anything should have expected from someone who just turned 20-years-old barely a week ago.
- Urias turned in six shutout innings, shutting down an offense that had humiliated the Dodger pitching staff the previous two games.
- Urias gave the rotation the go a head to get 18 outs in a game, I don’t think they knew it was possible until they saw someone do it.
- Urias gave the Dodgers the lead in the highly contested NL Western Division
Baseball Reference still considers the 2016 season to be the 19 year old season for Urias. And so using their criteria we can see that Urias keeps moving up the 19 year old season leader-board.
Urias broke Joe Moellers fifty-four-year-old record for LAD strikeouts for a teenager by fanning four in his 7/21/16 start giving him 48 compared to Joe’s 46.
With his start last night Urias now has sixty two strikeouts moving him into 9th place for strikeouts for National League pitchers, 19 or younger since 1958.
As you can see, Urias also holds the second highest SO9 rate of any teenager since the LAD came into existence in 1958 using 50 strikeouts as the threshold. Just Dwight Gooden fanned hitters at a better rate then Julio.
As great as all these teenagers were, you don’t see any hall of fame pitchers here. Gooden didn’t fall victim to arm issues but to drugs. Gary Nolan had a massive bone spur, and the story about that will turn your gut when you see how disposable baseball felt about their greatest assets. Joe Posnanki details how Frank Jobe saved Gary Nolan’s career.
He was 18 years old when he made his first start in the big leagues — he and Feller are the only two pitchers in baseball history to strike out 10 or more big league batters in a game before they turned 19 years old.
“Pitchers have to throw with pain,” his Reds manager Sparky Anderson told him. “Bob Gibson says every pitch he’s ever thrown cut him like a knife. You gotta pitch with pain, kid.”
Larry Dierker threw 1250 major league innings by the age of 23. Mike McCormick would win a Cy Young at age 28 in 1967 for the Giants but he was never really more than an average pitcher. Ray Sadecki became famous for getting traded from the Cardinals to the Giants for Orland Cepeda in 1966. Cepeda would lead the Cardinals to the 1967 World Championship while winning the MVP and eventually hit his way into the HOF.
Here is the complete list of teenagers from 1958 on who struck out at least 40 hitters:
Below is the table for only NL pitchers from 1958 who were 19 or younger.
| Player | Year | Age | SO | SO9 | SO/W |
| Dwight Gooden | 1984 | 19 | 276 | 11.39 | 3.78 |
| Gary Nolan | 1967 | 19 | 206 | 8.18 | 3.32 |
| Larry Dierker | 1965 | 18 | 109 | 6.69 | 2.95 |
| Larry Dierker | 1966 | 19 | 108 | 5.2 | 2.4 |
| Ray Sadecki | 1960 | 19 | 95 | 5.43 | 1.1 |
| Billy McCool | 1964 | 19 | 87 | 8.76 | 3 |
| Mike McCormick | 1958 | 19 | 82 | 4.14 | 1.37 |
| Don Gullett | 1970 | 19 | 76 | 8.81 | 1.73 |
| Julio Urias | 2016 | 19 | 62 | 9.8 | 3.6 |
| Mike McQueen | 1970 | 19 | 54 | 7.36 | 1.74 |
| Joe Moeller | 1962 | 19 | 46 | 4.83 | 0.79 |
The unblackening is gone and I’m going to miss most of it but not all of it
Man, I loved that opening. It was so awesome. I don’t pay much attention to rating so it came as a surprise to me that The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore was canceled this week. I didn’t watch every night, and probably missed his first 12 months because once Jon Stewart and Colbert left I took off from the Comedy Channel for a while.
The one time I saw the show Larry was poking at Bill Cosby and while I understand why he did it, it didn’t make me laugh, it made me sad, because Bill Cosby had made my family laugh for almost 50 years, and I had this deep respect for the man. So finding out he was a complete asshole was just depressing, and while I hope he gets what is coming to him, I wasn’t interesting in being reminded what an asshole he was. I know I’ll never be able to listen to a Bill Cosby routine, or watch a show with him ever again. And yeah, that makes me sad.
I don’t remember what brought me back to watch the Daily Show with Trevor Noah but it might have been the election coverage. Anyway, it was natural to watch the Nightly show right after it.
I like Larry, I liked the show, I liked his correspondents but the panel part at the end of the show didn’t work for me. I hate to use the word “resonate” because that is the excuse that Comedy Central gave for giving Larry the heave-ho but it is exactly how I felt about the panel discussion. Luckily it was at the end and time for bed anyway so I’d shut the show down just before the panel started. I figured I got at least 20 good minutes of thoughtful entertainment so I felt I was winning. Maybe that was the part of the show that others like, to each their own.
Wilmore had been referring to this year’s election as “The Unblackening.” As he said in a statement about his show’s cancellation, he is “also saddened and surprised we won’t be covering this crazy election or ‘The Unblackening’ as we’ve coined it. And keeping it 100, I guess I hadn’t counted on ‘The Unblackening’ happening to my time slot as well.”
It is weird that the man who came up with the unblackening slogan was part of the unblackening of the Comedy Channel. When I started writing this I didn’t know about the rating but after reading about them it does seem strange that Larry was sacked. The whole he “wasn’t resonating” sounds like they did some focus group bullshit. Too bad, he was his own man, and he and his people took some chances. Trevor Noah might have a better show if he the same correspondents working for him that Larry had. Hopefully, he’ll snag a couple.
And I hope Larry Wilmore gets another gig, he’s got some talent.
Dodger Notes – Offense was halted for one game, is that a trend or an anomaly?
Even with scoring, only two runs run last night the Dodger offense has been its best weapon in the second half. Since the all-star break:
- The Dodgers still posted double-digit hits last night and continue to lead the NL in team batting average at .278, and slugging % .468
- The Dodgers rank 2nd in the majors with an average of 5.40 runs per game. Overall they have scored 162 runs.
- The Dodgers slugging % of .468 is on pace to be the highest in LAD history, with a Usain Bolt like lead over the predecessor of .434 set in 2008 behind Manny Ramirez.
This offensive outbreak has been mainly provided by three players who all might end up garnering some MVP votes if they were to continue to hit this way, and lead the team to the NL Western crown.
Yazmani Grandal continues his offensive surge:
- Established his career high of 20 home runs, and is tied with Lucroy for the most home runs by a catcher this year.
- Grandal is the first Dodger catcher since Paul Lo Duca to hit 20 or more home runs. Lo Duca hit 25 home runs in 2001 but only 20 as a catcher.
- Since June 30th, Grandal is tied for the NL home run lead with 14 and his slug% of .701 is tops during that span with players who have had at last 100 at bats.
Just Turner is just as hot as Grandal:
- Turner leads the Dodgers in home runs with 23 and RBI with 72.
- Turner has hit safely in 15 of 16 games since July 30th and is batting .328 with 14 extra base hits.
- Since June 10th, Turner has posted a 1.037 OPS, while leading the major leagues in home runs with 19, and RBI with 52, and Slug% .670.
- Corey Seager now has a ten game hitting streak to go along with his earlier nineteen games hitting streak.
- During his ten game streak Seager is hitting .442 with two doubles, and two home runs
- Seager ranks 2nd in NL fWAR with 6.0
- Seager ranks 10th in wRC+ at 140
- Seager ranks 6th in runs with 79
- Seager ranks 3rd in hits with 148
- Seager ranks 3rd in doubles with 34
- Seager ranks 3rd in total bases with 251
- Seager ranks 11th in average at .313
- Seager ranks 14th in slugging% at .531
- Seager has 181 hits through the first 144 games of his career, and that is the most by a LAD to start their career.
That lead didn’t last long
The Dodgers were in and out of first place so fast it was like watching a Jamaican running the 100-meter dash.
What do you mean the Giants aren’t going to lose 2 out of 3 games the rest of the year?
What do you mean that a rotation with Ross Stripling, Bud Norris, Brett Anderson, and Scott Kazmir isn’t the stuff that Divisions are won with?
What do you mean it is hard to win when your cleanup hitter is hitting .164 | .227 | .180 with ZERO runs batted in, over fifteen games?
In just two games Dodger fans went from no hay problemas , being in first place, an 8 – 6 record in August and looking forward to five games in a row against the likes of the Phillies and Reds. Two games later they are in second place, the record is now 8 – 8 and they are counting on Brett Anderson who has pitched ONE major league inning in 2016 to right the ship.
The Dodgers have scored an excellent 80 runs in August but have now given up 89 runs in 16 games. I expect they will need to continue to average 5 runs a game over the next three games if they want to win a couple.
This season is just a bunch of No hay problema’s
No Clayton, No hay problema, we well just catch the Giants without you
Musical chair rotation, No hay problema, no matter who you gonna call, they win
Rookie SS shouldering the offensive load, No hay problema, I’ll just turn into the dark horse MVP candidate
Home run hitting 1st baseman missing home run stroke,No hay problema, I’ll just hit .350 instead
Playing a 2nd baseman in left field, No hay problema, I’ll just outhit 90% of the left fielders after the all-star break
Using a 19 year old in the rotation, No hay problema, I’ll just break every single 19 year old LAD record
Using a rookie who started in A ball for spot starts , oops, gigante problema
Demoting your star right fielder to AAA while chasing the Giants, No hay problema, I’ll catch them anyway
Your new right fielder can’t hit a lick, No hay problema, because everyone else is hitting
Your starting catcher was so bad in May that the fan base wanted him traded for LuCroy, No hay problema, I’ll just become the best hitting catcher in baseball since June
Your starting 3rd baseman was so bad in May that the fan base wanted him traded for Evan Longoria, No hay problema, I’ll just become the best hitting 3rd baseman in baseball since June
The Giants had an eight-game lead in June when Clayton Kershaw went down, No hay problema, I’ll just watch them lose game after game after game.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 